"Bargaining Chip": Antedating & Mystery

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:54 AM -0400 8/11/02, Rick H Kennerly wrote:
>|o| For years I have been posing a question about "bargaining chip" that no
>|o| one has yet answered.  This is widely assumed to be a poker
>|o| metaphor, but
>|o| I do not know of chips being used for bargaining in poker or any other
>|o| game.  What exactly is the metaphor?
>|o|
>
>
>I'm not ready to give up on the poker metaphor entirely.  After all,
>negotiating--diplomatic & otherwise--often takes a poker metaphor (show your
>hand, tip your hand, up the ante, put your cards on the table, my hold
>(hole) card, poker-faced, ace up our sleeve).
>
>I do not understand "bargaining chip" in any context other than a commodity
>(money, points of argument, Czechoslovakia, or goods) that is sacrificial
>and used to draw your opponent deeper into the game (incrementally upping
>the ante with each round of bidding when you're holding, say,  three of a
>kind and a pair) but that you are also willing to lose of need be).

But the other examples you cite are much more transparent (not to
mention "passing the buck", if you know that tradition of keeping
track of the deal from older practices).  Of course of those
metaphors are general to card playing rather than confined to poker,
but several are poker-specific (Jesse probably can supply a longer
list).  I just don't see it in "bargaining chip"; I'd be very
surprised if anyone finds a citation for the specific kind of
situation you cite, since again I insist no bargaining is involved
here.  I side with those who see this as a reanalysis of "chit"
(which, incidentally, derives from a Sanskrit word for 'note'; this
in turn raises the question of a possible origin in Anglo-India
during the Raj).

Larry